Kotecki On Tech

If you work in an office, life can dramatically improve when automation takes on tedious tasks. But what if your job is nothing but tedious tasks? And what if the tool replacing your job called itself ‘people friendly’? “What is our obligation as automation companies?” asks Catalytic CEO Sean Chou. “What’s our moral obligation to the jobs that we are replacing?” Get email updates about new episodes.

His company powers practical forms of computer vision. But Neurala CEO Max Versace has a deeper vision for AI. “For many years, I thought building AI is actually sort of building a mirror - a way in which we can look at ourselves,” he says. “...if I can build a copy of myself but it doesn’t do exactly what I do, then the residual is actually what defines me as a human.” Get email updates about new episodes.

How do you sell an unbelievable AI product when people literally don’t believe it? James and Dynatrace’s Dave Anderson have a marketer-to-marketer mind meld about artificial intelligence. “We’re selling to technology people that are quite skeptical. And often our customers will kind of go ‘that’s not AI.’ And then after awhile . . . they kind of go, ‘well, it’s either an AI or it’s magic.’” Get email updates about new episodes.

There will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021, says Bugcrowd CEO Ashish Gupta. “The reason these jobs are being unfilled . . . is that you can’t figure out how to get the right person to the right job.” His solution? A purpose-driven platform to crowdsource skilled researchers and turn vulnerability assessment into a game. Get email updates about new episodes.

Digital transformation leader Dr. Kanishka Bhattacharya joins James on the main stage of the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference. Recorded live in Cleveland, OH. Hello, Cleveland!

The technology to make realistic-looking videos imitating real people was once limited to big-budget professionals, says Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the COO and general counsel of the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).  “But what we’re seeing is with the ability for virtually anyone to have the technology to do this, there’s an increasing tendency to do this without consent,” he says.  Hollywood actors - and even you  - could unknowingly, unwillingly star in deepfake porn.

Unpacking the subscription economy and the end of ownership with Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo. He learned a thing or two about offering a subscription service as the eleventh employee of Salesforce.com. Get email updates about new episodes.

With a billion-dollar valuation, the security training company KnowBe4 is a newly-minted unicorn helping fight phishing attacks. It’s a moment of celebration for CEO Stu Sjouwerman amid the “never-ending arms race” against the bad guys. One emerging challenge: disturbingly realistic deepfake videos like a recent video of “Mark Zuckerberg.” “It looks pretty good, meaning it looks pretty real, meaning it looks pretty scary because people just might get the right idea. Training people that they cannot trust what they actually see, hear on a seemingly live person saying things . . . it gets harder and harder.” Get email updates about new episodes.

“As a computer scientist, I firmly believe at some point, AI is going to help automate most of the tasks,” says Stratifyd CEO Derek Wang. But Wang's not predicting human-free companies. For him, AI is like a sous chef helping humans cook up complex decisions. “Business is all about people. I don’t see people going anywhere without inserting themselves in every single step of the business.” Get email updates about new episodes.

If you could distill the opinions of the tech world down to a single voice, it would probably sound a lot like Gary Shapiro’s. He’s the president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), representing over 2,200 tech companies in Washington, DC. CTA is the group behind CES, the massive, news-making tech trade show that happens every year in Las Vegas. Gary is also the bestselling author of Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation, which was a springboard for our conversation. Like CES itself, we covered a lot of ground, including: If every company is a tech company, what does “tech” even mean? (1:46) Differences in European, American, and Chinese tech policy (3:28) Are AI’s data requirements at odds with western ideals? (6:29) The life-changing potential benefits of AI (8:00) The reality of working with the Trump administration (9:06) The “techlash” from the left and and right (13:32) How innovation could save humanity (18:29) Get email updates about new episodes.

“The services that we use, they seem so simple, because everything is one touch, one click, one swipe” says Scalyr CEO Christine Heckart.  “But what is happening underneath to give you that very simple, elegant experience is an extremely complex labyrinth of interconnected microservices.” “And it has become it has become so intertwined, so interdependent, so complex, that the average human brain - any human brain, even an extraordinary one - can’t keep the whole system in their head in real time because it’s always changing.” Get email updates about new episodes.

Artificial intelligence can seem like automated magic, but it takes an army of human data labelers to do the trick. Their work may appear  monotonous, but Scale CEO Alex Wang, says that for many around the world, it’s a welcome opportunity. “It’s really hard for us being in America to fully grasp this, but around the world the reality is in a lot of areas there are really, really poor employment opportunities. . . . as our platform scales and as the Internet scales in the world, many, many people are getting access to jobs and employment opportunities when otherwise they simply wouldn’t.” Get email updates about new episodes.

Olive is a healthcare bot who’s been built not just to work with humans, but to seem like one. So what happens to real human workers as “she” keeps getting smarter? Olive CEO Sean Lane says humans will always be in charge - but jobs are going to change. “Once you understand what it can do, and once you see Olive working and really realize the potential, your mind immediately goes to the inevitability that Olive will be doing a lot of the work that your humans are doing today. It really takes a reframing of how we think about work in general.” Get email updates about new episodes.

In a future flooded with digital forensic data, criminal justice will rely on A.I. to keep up. The challenge for the justice system, says Oxygen Forensics COO Lee Reiber, is keeping up with A.I. “… as we progress to even more information and now utilizing these specific algorithms, boy - if the investigator’s not able to explain that to the prosecutor or the judge, how’s a prosecutor or judge going to understand that information?” Get email updates about new episodes.

Can big business save the planet? Sure, says hydrogen fuel cell maker Andy Marsh. The real question is whether America will lead the charge or get lapped by China. “In the solar industry - the high tech portion of the solar industry - a lot of it’s in China at the moment. And if you look at China’s 2025 plan, it’s to have the fuel cell industry in China.” Get email updates about new episodes.

Can augmented reality kill business travel? Spatial’s Jacob Loewenstein invites to you to skip the trip, strap on some smart glasses, and hang out with holograms. “We think of Spatial as the equivalent of giving people superpowers and enabling them to teleport and meet with people anywhere.” Get email updates about new episodes.

In an era of click-based comedy, topical TV goes way beyond the television.  Matt Negrin, a Senior Digital Producer on The Daily Show, respects the traditional timeslot while relishing the “weird and experimental” freedom of digital platforms. “...we’re so integrated into the normal process of the show but at the same time, we do things that are original that don’t go on the show. We do things that are just for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or sometimes just one of those platforms.” Get email updates about new episodes.

While building a social screen sharing app to fight loneliness, Esther Crawford finds herself in a lonely position of her own: female tech CEO. “I’m not the male engineer who’s 22 from Stanford. Instead, I’m a designer who’s in my mid-30s. I’m a mom. I’m a woman. I’m working on a consumer social product. There are virtually no females out there working on consumer social. I don’t fit the narrative, and I’m totally ok with that.” Get email updates about new episodes.

“People say, well, is privacy dying? I would say no - privacy is completely dead.” Keeper Security CEO Darren Guccione on perilous passwords, bad biometrics, and state-sponsored cyberwar. Get email updates about new episodes.

Imagining a future of ubiquitous automation, mass job disruption, and an economic model that rewards humans for helping bots. “We think work is going to change to where people are part of the fabric of AI, as opposed to this divide where there’s AI on one side and people on another.” - Antony Brydon, CEO of Directly. * * * Get email updates about new episodes.